Tag: the dark faces of child labour

Child labour is child abuse. It is modern-day slavery and a violation of the rights of the child. Article 6b of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) demands that governments ensure continuous growth of the child, while Article 19a calls on State parties to implement protective measures for the child from all forms of abuse. In spite of this convention, many regimes have failed to provide lifelong security and protection to the children. It seems that most children, safeguarding policies just ended up locked in office desks, and nobody worries.

Child labour has many dark, disgusting faces. It includes sexual exploitation of minors, such as child prostitution, Internet pornography, and holiday sex-trade to for western men. Some parents, particularly mothers, are offering their little daughters for sex in exchange for money and material gifts. The other kinds of child labour are; forced physical unpaid jobs, forced conscription as child soldiers, drug & animal trafficking, forced pick-pocketing & petit thefts. Certain kids are pulled out of schools to stay home as nannies to look after their younger siblings simply because their parents cannot afford to pay for babysitters. At present, other children are serving as permanent long-term house-helps in many African and Asian states. The majority of them face severe exploitation as their employers do not pay them the agreed wages. They are crushed, mutilated, assault, sexual by their employers or employers’ children and sometimes some are killed.

In many regions around the world, children who are street-hawking are not seen as experiencing abuse. Although, some of these youngsters are placed under duress to hawk, some are not. And the latter fall in the category of these children who are from impoverished societies, and they are obliged to work to sustain their family.

Lack of proper education is one major characteristic of child labour. But how does one anticipate a poor family, with barely one-dollar per day to survive, to have the monetary means to send their children to school?

Child labour has no particular target. Every child is apt to experience one form of child labour. Yet, many unaccompanied migrants-children have and are still falling prey to forced labours. The vulnerability of orphans female children remains undisputed, especially to forced child-sex works.

It is quite difficult to pinpoint child labour to a particular type abuse against children. It is vast. The reality is, there are other types of child labour yet to be identified.